After you have food, shelter, clothing, and a few necessities, everything else is status, vanity, and power. Extra money helps us feel good about ourselves… and attract mates. It’s not just the money that matters. It’s your relative position in society.”

Humans were shown the door from Eden a long time ago. Now, we live in imperfection and need correction. We need an adversary. We need setbacks. We need to push against something. Our muscles need to strain in opposition to some force—or else they wither. So do our characters and our minds. “Too much” is not a blessing; it is a curse. We benefit from scarcity, not from having too much. When things are too plentiful and too easy—when we’re able to get what we want without resistance—we’re headed for weakness, for fragility, and for disaster. We flourish when things are hard, not when they are easy.”

You don’t really need much to live. Food, clothing, shelter, a WiFi connection. After you have the basics everything else is no longer about survival. It’s about status: the relationship between you and your fellow men.”

“One of the results of the credit explosion is that it makes it hard to
tell who is rich and who is not. People can live as though they had money,
even when they have none. Which puts a strain on the whole system of envy.
A man tries to keep up with the Joneses…who may be only trying to keep
up with him. Neither may realize that the other has no money. Both go into
debt chasing a mirage.”

“… issues of money – and the envy it causes – [are] creating more
financial and psychological distress than we can imagine, psychologists
and social scientists say. We overspend to keep up with neighbors and
friends; take jobs we’re not happy at to keep up a lifestyle we think we
should have; and compulsively watch television shows that flaunt
multimillion-dollar homes and exotic vacations.”